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Pan-species List

For quite some time I have made an effort to diversify my interests, though moths and birds are still the main focus for most of year. A lot of the other stuff I see is either incidental whilst I am out and about mothing or birding, or noted whilst pottering about in the garden or locally with the camera.

Once I'd become aware of the concept of pan-species listing, I was curious as to what my list would look like. Whilst my moth list is reasonable, and the bird list is average, I had no illusions that everything else would be anything but pathetic. I finally got around to it in Nov 2011 (1983 species), and it was interesting looking back and thinking about the things I'd seen. I was slightly surprised to realise how few butterflies, mammals and dragonflies I'd seen, but unsurprised about the dearth of diptera, plants, bryophytes and fungi.

It's pretty clear that anyone with real botanical skill, or those actively recording fungi, coleoptera or diptera, are far more likely to build up a very sizeable list. Despite previously stating that I would not start chasing totals, I'm finding that it's difficult to go out and not see anything new!

Note that everything is British only (as in Great Britain, no Irish or Channel Islands stuff).

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Played in bands, drank some beer, went birding, started twitching, played poker, drank some beer, photographed moths, stopped twitching, watched some football, stopped birding, drank some beer, started birding, and somewhere along the way got married and created three great children. Not necessarily in that order. Please have a look at the first posting to this BLOG for a slightly more detailed introduction to my background.